Story:

I found a Earthworm in Dairy Milk Silk.
When I searched on Google,
There were number of people who had found insects or something else in Silk.

Do we buy such expensive Chocolates for Worms inside them ?
Please Share and let it reach to your close ones who are so fond of Chocolates especially SILK !

Worms Found in Dairy Milk Silk ChocolateWorms Found in Dairy Milk Silk Chocolate

Analysis:

Picture messages widely shared online claim to show Worms found in Dairy Milk Silk Chocolate. It is a fact, not just the regular Dairy Milk chocolate; there are incidents where other chocolates from same manufacturer Cadbury, like Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut were shown to contain worms. To make it worse, the issue is not limited to worms, there are also complaints from consumers reporting poor quality, rotten, and fungus infected Dairy Milk chocolates as listed here.

Worms Found in Dairy Milk Silk ChocolateWorms Found in Dairy Milk Silk Chocolate

Video Proofs

Some consumers who were shocked to see worms in their Dairy Milk chocolate recorded their find and posted on YouTube, an example of which is shown in the video above. The user BalaMurugan M posted the incident on YouTube in March 2013, also explaining his issue conveyed to the Cadbury Company in India. In response, he said the Consumer Response Cell asked for the details of his purchase and said that they will send their Sales Officer to collect the product for examination. As of this writing, from the video description, the person did not hear from the company again. The video below shows another instance where Dairy Milk Silk Fruit & Nut is badly infested with worms.

Similar Incident Reported in Past

Reports of worms in Daily Milk chocolates are not new, they have been around since at least 2003, and one such incident in Maharashtra is reported on rediff.com. When a Cadbury stockist found live worms coming out of Dairy Milk chocolates, he informed the manufacturer, and when they did not act on his complaint, he approached FDA (Food and Drug Administration of Maharashtra) Commissioner Uttam Khobragade, who told rediff.com that he had crosschecked the stockist’s claim and found it to be true. Following these complaints, the FDA of Maharashtra had then ordered the seizure of all Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolates from their factory at Talegaon near Pune, India.

It is interesting to note that after few such instances of worms appearing in Dairy Milk bars in Maharashtra, Cadbury company launched a PR campaign for their trade, and three months later, came their advertising campaign featuring Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, and a revamped metallic poly-flow packaging. Cadbury won back their consumer confidence.

Company’s Defense

In past cases of worms found in their Dairy Milk bars, in defense, Cadbury issued a statement that the infestation could not be possible at the manufacturing stage, and that poor storage at the retailers was the most likely cause of the issue.

A spokesman for the company said in past that their chocolates are vulnerable to infestation if they are stored near grains and cereals, or in unhygienic conditions. The company, therefore, provides retailers with storage dispensers and visicoolers for adequate protection of its products. They also mentioned about the instruction on their product label saying: ‘Store in a cool, hygienic and dry place.’

FDA Response

Back in 2006, the FDA (Maharashtra) commissioner Uttam Khobragade told CNBC-TV18, “It was presumed that worms got into it at the storage level, but then what about the packing – packaging was not proper or airtight, either ways it’s a manufacturing defect with unhygienic conditions or improper packaging.”

Notably, even in early 2014, we have seen many such complaints of worms in chocolates reported on Cadbury Dairy Milk (India) Facebook page as well. To all these complaints, the Company representative on Facebook page responds with a similar message:

Cadbury India endeavours to maintain the highest quality standards, and we apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. Please write to us at consumer.service.cell@mdlz.com with your contact and product details. Please retain the product in a sealed bag, our representative will visit to examine the product.

Many users who found and reported live worms in Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars have mentioned that the company is only keen to collect back their damaged product, and not solve their issue.

Conclusion

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is a trusted brand of chocolates, which enjoys an emotional equity in India; it is in fact every kid’s delight. But the reports of worms, also the poor quality, rotten, and fungus infected Dairy Milk chocolates are really pathetic. Like Santosh Desai, former president, McCann-Erickson said in past:

“The nature of the relationship that Cadbury’s has built with the consumer is responsible for latitude the consumers are giving it. They are seeing it as a lapse, not a breach of trust – this difference is key. What Cadbury’s set out to deliver, it goofed up once but it seemed to be very sincere in its intent to get things right.”

We advise people to be careful while buying and eating any Cadbury products. We hope the company takes these issues into serious concerns to change their manufacturing/packaging/distribution system to avoid any such incidents in future.